John Ford, a scientist emeritus with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, started recording West Coast orca sounds in the late 1970s. He soon realised that each pod and clan uses its own stable set of calls, a kind of vocal dialect.

Decades of his work have been turned into an online call catalogue by Simon Fraser University’s HALLO project. The database holds recordings from Bigg’s (transient) orcas, as well as the northern and southern resident populations, and users can filter the sounds by clan and pod.

The catalogue is not just a listening archive. Researchers say that by matching new hydrophone recordings with the known dialects, citizen scientists and scientists can spot which whale group is nearby. Early detection near busy shipping lanes could give vessels a chance to slow down.

Ship strikes are a major threat to the southern resident orcas, which are listed as critically endangered and now number about 75 individuals. Scientists, including SFU environmental science professor Ruth Joy, have highlighted ship collisions as a significant cause of death for this group.

By making the vocal signatures publicly accessible, the tool encourages more people to monitor orca movements and share data. While the catalogue cannot identify individual whales, it provides a practical way to recognise vulnerable populations and support future protection measures.